Ciara Enlists Nicki Minaj For Break-Up Anthem ‘I’m Out’

onstage during the 2013 BET Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on June 30, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

(Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment)

Ciara is out with the break-up anthem of the 2013 and, smartly, she got Nicki Minaj to do the intro verse — Roman style. The duo released a video for the track, “I’m Out,” today (July 1) that opens with them together in an all-white, space ship-like environment, while they both wear skin-tight white bodysuits.

“Now which b**** run it? Cuz that b**** get it,” is among the tamer rhymes Minaj drops, but it captures the tone of the whole song and video. When Ciara and Minaj make direct eye contact with the camera, staring it down while they pop and thrust, the viewer quickly gets the point of who runs things. The prolonged and direct eye contact is unusual and creates a powerful image of two women not backing down, even while they are moving in sexually suggestive ways.

The video both subverts and courts the male gaze throughout with this same brazen tone, which is the ideal compliment to the song. Directed by Hannah Lux Davis (Lil Wayne, Cher Lloyd), the visuals flow along with the music in the same vein as Beyoncé “Single Ladies.” It’s a celebration of a break up that chastises the idiot who left, while flaunting the assets that will make him sorry he did it. It’s an especially female-friendly look, with the second act, after Ciara and Minaj together, featuring Ciara in a crowd of girlfriends with one male dancer who is dressed in an outfit that gives the visual cues that he’s also a “girlfriend.”